Multi-million dollar William Few Parkway project to start early

COLUMBIA COUNTY, Ga. (WRDW/WAGT) - With constant growth in Columbia County and more planned for the future traffic engineers are at work. At William Few Parkway a multi-million dollar project is about to get started ahead of schedule.

Work was supposed to begin in 2023. With all the growth and wear on the road county engineers say it can’t wait that long. Tuesday night, commissioners were set to approve an agreement with the Georgia Department of Transportation to let work start 18 months ahead of schedule.

“It’s just a lot of traffic,” said Kelli Hansen.

Hansen has lived in Grovetown for five years. She says the traffic on William Few Parkway near Exit 190 keeps getting worse.

“They’re building so many houses, but the roads, especially William Few haven’t caught up,” she said.

Now the county is trying to keep up.

“We need to resurface that road out there pretty bad,” she said.

County engineer Steve Exley says they were supposed to repave the road in 2023 and add some turn lanes. With all the traffic and wear on the road he says it can’t wait any longer.

“We have a lot of construction traffic, a lot of commuters, just a lot of volume, the roads may not have been designed for this type of traffic originally,” said Exley.

He says the new agreement with GDOT lets them start the project early. But to do that the county has to pay for it now. More than $2 million and they won’t get reimbursed until 2023.

“We felt like this one was worth it, so we need to get going on it,” he said.

Hansen is ready for it but not ready for construction.

“When they start the project, it’s just gonna make William Few that much more congested. But, when it’s completed it’s gonna be great,” he said.

Exley says they’ll start looking for bids Wednesday. It’s a two phase project. He expects phase one which includes the part closest to the interstate to begin in January and take about three months.

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